Amazon CloudWatch vs Prometheus

May 27, 2023 | Author: Michael Stromann
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Amazon CloudWatch
CloudWatch collects monitoring and operational data in the form of logs, metrics, and events, providing you with a unified view of AWS resources, applications, and services that run on AWS and on-premises servers.
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Prometheus
An open-source monitoring system with a dimensional data model, flexible query language, efficient time series database and modern alerting approach.
Amazon CloudWatch and Prometheus are both popular monitoring and observability tools used in the field of cloud computing, but they have some key differences.

Amazon CloudWatch is a fully managed monitoring and observability service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It offers a comprehensive set of monitoring capabilities for AWS resources and applications, including metrics collection, log monitoring, and alarm management. CloudWatch provides centralized visibility into AWS services, allowing users to monitor performance, troubleshoot issues, and gain insights into resource utilization. It integrates seamlessly with other AWS services and provides features like automatic scaling and anomaly detection.

Prometheus, on the other hand, is an open-source monitoring and alerting system that originated from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). It is designed to monitor systems and applications in dynamic, containerized environments. Prometheus excels at collecting and storing time-series data, providing powerful querying and alerting capabilities. It offers a flexible and extensible data model and supports various data exporters for collecting metrics from different sources. Prometheus is often used in conjunction with other cloud-native technologies like Kubernetes.

One notable difference between Amazon CloudWatch and Prometheus is their deployment models. CloudWatch is a fully managed service provided by AWS, meaning it is a turnkey solution that requires minimal setup and maintenance. Prometheus, being an open-source tool, requires self-deployment and configuration, giving users more control over their monitoring infrastructure.

See also: Top 10 IT Monitoring software
Amazon CloudWatch vs Prometheus in our news:

2019. Zabbix 4.2 adds built-in support of Prometheus data collection



Zabbix Team has recently unveiled the launch of Zabbix 4.2. This latest version introduces a comprehensive monitoring system equipped with cutting-edge features, including data collection and processing, distributed monitoring, real-time problem and anomaly detection, alerting and escalations, visualization, and more. Zabbix 4.2 significantly enhances data collection capabilities, supporting diverse methods such as push and pull from various sources like JMX, SNMP, WMI, HTTP/HTTPS, RestAPI, XML Soap, SSH, Telnet, agents, scripts, and more. Notably, the integration with Prometheus has been added as a new feature, allowing native support for the PromQL language. Additionally, the utilization of dependent metrics empowers the Zabbix team to efficiently gather a vast amount of Prometheus metrics. By making a single HTTP call, all the required data can be retrieved and subsequently reused for relevant dependent metrics.

Author: Michael Stromann
Michael is an expert in IT Service Management, IT Security and software development. With his extensive experience as a software developer and active involvement in multiple ERP implementation projects, Michael brings a wealth of practical knowledge to his writings. Having previously worked at SAP, he has honed his expertise and gained a deep understanding of software development and implementation processes. Currently, as a freelance developer, Michael continues to contribute to the IT community by sharing his insights through guest articles published on several IT portals. You can contact Michael by email stromann@liventerprise.com